Every time I sign up for a Fly On The Wall challenge I think to myself, "This time I am going to takenotes throughout the whole month. I will write down all the funny stuff I don't write about and it will be great!!"
This challenge is great. A group of amazing bloggers all write posts made up of snippets of our lives. The end result reads as if you were a fly on our walls. It gives us a chance to share those moments that are worth writing about but may not be long enough to stand on their own. As I said, I go into it excited and motivated to remember every detail.
Then, I find myself sitting here, a day before this post is to go live and I am note-less. Every. Single. Time.
Then I remembered how successful my last writing challenge was when I asked my 3.5 year old daughter to define the words I was supposed to use. I turned to her and asked her what I should write about.
"Me!"
I should have seen that one coming. Hope you all enjoy being a Fly On The Wall of a pretty amazing little girl!!
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"Mommy, can we go outside now and play with my new swing?" She was giddy with excitement. GIDDY.
"Yes, as soon as we finish lunch." I was famished and needed at least 2 minutes to eat.
She quickly took a bite and asked through peanut butter coated teeth, "Can we go out now?"
She had been asking since my husband hung the thing at 9am. We had errands to run and a play date to attend. At no point during our morning had she gone more than 20 minutes without asking about her new swing. My left eye was starting to twitch and I knew that I was developing some sort of aversion to the words "new swing."
"We can go outside right after you eat your lunch. Preferably more than one bite," I answered as calmly as possible. I totally understood her excitement and remember how much I used to love running outside to play on my swing set.
My mind wandered back 30 or so years earlier. This same house, the same back yard. My grandparents lived here along with my most favorite and best friend, George. George was a molded plastic horse that swung from my metal framed swing set. I spent hours swinging on him, feeding him, and generally taking the very best care of him. I loved that horse and couldn't imagine how many days I spent begging to go out and play.
I totally understood my daughters excitement.
It was finally time to go outside. She made a beeline for the trapeze style swing while I tied the dogs out. When I turned to watch her, see her little face light up with pure swinging bliss, she was gone. The T-bar was swinging lazily and alone. My excited daughter had swung on it once and abandoned it for her sandbox. The sandbox she had played in all last year.
"Aren't you going to swing on your new swing?"
"I did, mommy. Now I done and playing in my sandbox. Thanks for bringing me out here!"
Four hours of asking to play on her swing for four seconds of swinging. Seemed exactly right.
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Earlier this week the temperatures here in NH reached into the mid 70s. It felt luxurious to have ample sunshine and warmth. The kiddo and I took full advantage and headed to a local farm to play on their playground.
Running in front of the play area is a brook, just begging to be waded in. Eventually all the kids migrated to the water.
My daughter only went in up to her ankles but decided to squat down a few times and quickly ended up with a soaking wet backside. The water was cold and we only had one dry pair of pants. I told her I would go get them for her but she needed to stay out of the water. She agreed and I left her in the care of our friends we were with.
Sometime between me walking away and returning, my little girl took advantage of our friends not hearing me ask her to stay out of the water and got back in. She tried to climb a rock and fell. By the time I got back she was screaming and my friends were sprinting to her.
I dropped everything I held and ran to her. She had fallen in up to her neck. Shaking and upset I brought her back to our car and striped her down to nothing. I took full advantage of the greenhouse effect of my car and dried her off in the sweltering heat, trying to warm her up.
While doing so I made sure she was ok. I checked her head to toe. One small bruise. I also took the opportunity to talk to her about listening to me. Explaining that I had asked her to stay out of the water while I was gone for safety reasons, not to be mean.
She apologized for falling. She apologized for scaring me. She apologized for not listening. I apologized for not being there. We both felt awful and so grateful that in the end, we only had apologies and a small bruise.
She learned a valuable lesson and I was reminded, once again, to be grateful for every moment.
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For the first time in her memory, our electricity went out and our daughter had questions. Lots of them.
We tried our best to explain everything to her and she seemed pretty content with our answers. Luckily, it all happened 30 minutes before she headed to bed. We figured by morning the power would have been restored and she would have moved on.
We were half right.
She got up to electricity and didn't mention it. We went about our morning routines and said our good-byes to my hubby.
I settled onto the couch to do some work on my computer and she stood next to me, staring at the on but muted television. I was a little curious as to what she was doing but decided to wait it out.
After a few moments she dreamily commented, "I hope the electricity comes back on soon...."
Blinking, I replied that it was on. Had been since right after she went to sleep the night before. Plus, if it were not on, the television wouldn't be working.
"Oh. Right. I am so happy. I missed the electricity." She turned around and smiled at me. Right before she skipped off she pointed to right behind my head at the fabric that covers our couch. "See that? Right there? There is a kid standing with one eye and one leg. Bye mommy!!"
I glanced at the markings on the fabric and could maybe, if I squinted one eye and closed the other, see what she saw. I chuckled and opened my laptop.
I would do anything to live a day in the head of a 3.5 year old.
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Please do check out the other participants in this month's Fly On The Wall challenge. And a huge thank you to Karen at Baking In A Tornado for being the host/organizer/brains behind this (and many other) great challenges.
http://www.BakingInATornado.
http://www.therowdybaker.com
http://www.justalittlenutty.
http://themomisodes.com
http://spatulasonparade.
http://thesadderbutwisergirl.
http://followmehome.
http://stacysewsandschools.
http://www.someoneelsesgenius.
http://www.impoverishedvegan.
http://www.gomamao.com
